Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985)

Howling II's production history was one of poor funding and broken promises at the hands of Hemdale Film Corporation. Steven Lane, producer of The Howling, recounted how the film was made, 'So sequel rights (to The Howling) were mine, and a lot of people were interested in financing one. However, I couldn’t do a direct sequel to Dante’s film as those rights were Embassy’s. I was determined I was going to turn a profit somehow on the investment, so I shopped for the best deal I could find. That turned out to be with Hemdale who offered the proverbial ‘too good to be true’ deal. And of course, it was. They could offer me a great deal since they had absolutely no intention of honoring it.'

Lane objected to Hemdale's treatment of Howling II director Philippe Mora; 'The way in which Philippe first became involved has a lot to say about Hemdale. He had just finished (A Breed Apart) for them on a decent budget with Kathleen Turner and Rutger Hauer, which they had yet to pay him for. They told him if he would direct Howling II they would pay him for both films. I’m not really sure he ever got paid for either. We were finishing up production on (Howling) V (1990) when I finally got my first financial statement on II out of Hemdale.

Hemdale had basically no money at all, and seeked out financing from the international market, impacting the filming locations as well, with prospective choice hopping from Los Angeles to Mexico to Spain to finally Czechoslovakia precisely as it was cheapest to film in. And of course, this impacted the film's special effects.

The werewolf suits were the work of Ellis 'Sonny' Burman's Cosmekinetics company, with the actual supervision falling to Jack Bricker. Among the Cosmekinetics team were Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler. Cosmekinetics was based in Los Angeles, while the actual filming was taking place in Prague (on location and in Barrandov Studios). Johnson recounted how he got the job in Fangoria;

'I had some time off after working on Ghostbusters, and I was looking for something to do, (...) I heard through the grapevine that Sonny Burman had The Howling II in his shop and was looking for someone to go to Czechoslovakia to apply the work. I went to see Sonny's business manager and he said, 'Have you got a passport?' and I said 'Yeah'. He said 'Have you got it with you?' I said 'No' and he said, 'Can you be on a plane tonight?'

Johnson later would recount in Cinefantastique about how chaotic the actual production was, 'I think the production was collapsing even that early on. All I did was apply what was sent over from Sonny’s studio. They [Cosmekinetics] weren’t getting paid (...) Things changed from day to day, even hour to hour. There was no time, no money, no plans. We got by with suits, some hair, and some fangs.'

Jack Bricker's werewolf suits, fabricated back in LA by Cosmekinetics with Hemdale's meagre funding, were derided by both Johnson and Lane as looking like 'Planet of the Apes suits'. Ellis Burman himself had such a low opinion of the werewolf suits that when seeing one worn as a prank by Shannon Shea years later, all he could say was 'Damn that Jack Bricker.'

Scott Wheeler believed the 'ape suit' look was an accident on Jack Bricker's part. 'When (Bricker) built the understructures of these particular makeups, they pushed a little further out and a little more roundish than was originally intended, and that gave it more of an ape look'. Wheeler also notes that the full body hair suits looked cheap because the musculature padding underneath did not show through the hair as well.

Director Philippe Mora with Jack Bricker's derided 'ape suits'.

The Cosmekinetics crew stayed in Czechoslovakia for six weeks on scenes requiring makeup effects. Facial prosthetics were designed and applied on Ferdy Mayne, Marsha Hunt, and Judd Omen for their werewolf transformations.

Two more werewolf makeups were made for the anonymous werewolves in the car attack and LA ending scene. Rob Burman designed and applied the car attack werewolf makeup.

James Kagels' sculpt for the Ferdy Mayne werewolf makeup appliance

The werewolf orgy scene only required Sybil Danning, Marsha Hunt and Judd Omen to wear ear appliances, nails and fangs. Fur was applied over their nude bodies, mostly for the sex scene to avoid getting an X rating.

This resulted in the production's strangest moment; when Steve Johnson applied the fur to Omen's penis, the actor started getting erect, and had to stop it by bellowing opera lyrics! Wheeler would recount, 'I was so glad I was not Steve Johnson that day'.

The Judd Omen werewolf facial prosthetic - it is barely seen in the film.

The Ferdy Mayne werewolf makeup.

The Marsha Hunt werewolf makeup.

Steve Johnson applying a werewolf makeup.

Rob Burman's wolfman makeup.

Rob Burman's makeup in the film.

Because Cosmekinetics was based in Los Angeles, all they could do was deliver the werewolf suits and some prosthetics to the Prague crew. All of the more elaborate effects were shot in LA during post-production thanks to the lack of funding!

An example was the werewolf puppet head seen briefly throughout the film in extreme close-up shots. These shots were in close-up to hide that it was filmed months later in LA!

The other puppet heads made during post-production included a rudimentary 'change-o-head', a werewolf dummy rigged with squibs, and two human dummy heads for a pair of death scenes. Philippe Mora had a DIY approach to the dummy head gore, as he told Fangoria;

'We have a good dosage of head bursts. I seem to have a fancy for that; I did an exploding head in Mad Dog Morgan. We used lamb's brains stuffed inside a wax sculpture. Lamb's brains are very effective. Lamb's brains and tomato soup. This is probably a particularly Australian approach to exploding heads.

Lamb's and pig's brains were used in The Howling II, depending on the intelligence of the character. You see, pigs have a higher I.Q., so if the character is smarter, it is recommended to use pig's brains. I won't tell you who we used lamb's brains for in the movie.'

Other closeups of flesh pressing, nails growing out, stabbing closeups, so on, were done back at Cosmekinetics in LA months later, along with all the other effects shots. According to Mora, all of the post-production effects sequences took just ten days to film.

A 'generic' werewolf dummy head in the film

The Howling II change-o-head puppet

A 'generic' werewolf dummy head in the film

The Judd Omen werewolf dummy head in the film

(I'll pretend the lamb brains were used for the human characters as both were idiots)

A puppet of the Stirba staff gargoyle was also made for the sequence when it comes alive and kills a priest. Due to how paltry the film's budget was, I doubt that they had the money to make more than one puppet.

Sources:

• Fangoria #49 'The Transylvania Connection' Interview with Philippe Mora about Howling II.
  
• Fangoria #134 'The New Breed of Werewolf FX' by Mark Salisbury
  
• Cinefantastique Vol 22 No 1 'Still Howling After All These Years' (August 1991)
  
• First Person Monster Blog, 'From Evil Dead to Cute Dogs' (Shea's recounting of Ellis Burman's low opinion of Jack Bricker's work)
  
• Arrow Video's Howling II bluray 'A Monkey Phase' featurette interviewing Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler about Howling II.